Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 52592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
“Well, lucky for you, it wasn’t your decision to make.” Luc’s words are tense now. He doesn’t like being confronted, but it was necessary. When someone asks for my help and my involvement, I don’t take it lightly when they change course midstream, especially not when innocent lives are at stake.
“Well, I should take my place at the altar now,” he says as the music begins to play. “The ceremony is about to begin.”
“Of course,” I say, taking a step back toward the side of the cathedral. “My congratulations again.”
Luc stands smiling at the altar as the doors at the front of the church open and Valentina begins her walk down the aisle. From the shadows, as always, I stand in the cathedral’s corner and watch. She looks lovely, an ivory flurry of lace and billowing satin and flowers as she walks toward her waiting groom, more like waddles due to the growing child in her belly. But it’s not her that catches my eye—it’s the woman standing at the back of the church, her insatiably curious hazel eyes scanning the crowd as if she’s hoping to find something at the edges of the event. Perhaps something like me.
I can see her slipping back into obsession again. I’ve spent years watching Elle Monroe from afar, keeping my distance for good reason as she tries to hunt me down in this game of “cat and mouse” that the two of us have been playing for years. She doesn’t know who I am. To her, I’m only a nameless Ghost and the obsession that keeps her chasing at my heels. But I know who she is, and that is exactly why I’ve kept my distance all this time.
When the music stops, the priest begins the ceremony, and I sink further back into the shadows until Elle’s eyes can no longer see me here. I watch as vows are exchanged and the guests in the pews whisper things that only I can hear. Some comment about how lovely the ceremony is, while others are busy scheming their next moves. Family, business, or both connect everyone in this cathedral. I, on the eve of my thirty-fourth year of life, am the exception. I make a point of not being involved in the lives of these people. I choose willful withdrawal, emotional detachment, and a life lived in the shadows, avoiding connection, responsibility, and purpose— when the world seems as if it is burning around me. Perhaps it’s a flaw of mine, or maybe even a sin, the type of sloth that keeps me from acting when others would. But I embody it by staying hidden and refusing to engage. Distance equals safety. The bigger sin would be what I could do to the people around me if I wanted to.
I was born in Russia, raised there for all of my formative years, and trained to be a lethal assassin, skills which I used as a Bratva operative and one of the most ruthless fixers Moscow had ever seen. When I left Russia and moved to the States, I transitioned my skill set to serve as an underworld enforcer. And although still a bloody job, I have found my time in Vegas to be much less brutal than my days in Russia, the days that garnered me several notable scars along my hands and forearms. Scars that I’ve tried to tattoo over in order to cover up my violent past, but that still visibly persist to serve as reminders of all that I came from and who I have become as a result of what I have done and endured. Not all ghosts do the haunting—their own past, guilt, loss, and regret also haunt some. As the ceremony continues, my eyes drift from the bride and groom and all the ornate gold filigree and stained glass encapsulating this moment of sacred union, to her—Elle Monroe.
I vividly remember the night in the alley where someone shot and killed her mother, as if it happened yesterday. She was so young then, and even now she’s too young for me, if I ever wanted to let myself grow attached to anyone, which I don’t. But yet I’ve held an almost consuming fascination with her from afar since first laying eyes on her. She’s smart—too smart for her own good. I’ve done my homework about her, and I’ve kept an eye on her since that night. Her file paints the picture of a brilliant psychological profiler, able to analyze and predict complex behavior with an admittedly astonishing accuracy rate. I wonder if that’s true. I’ve also heard that she’s fearless in the face of danger, which doesn’t surprise me since she had the guts to chase after me that night in the alley. I’m not so sure that I would consider that trait an asset, though, especially not when she regularly places herself in peril just to achieve some misguided, purpose-driven sense of justice or closure. Those are the kinds of fool’s errands that get you killed.